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  “Yes, my friend was in here on Monday. She said she only got twenty-five dollars, though. She didn’t get a copy of her statement.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “I—I think so. There were others, not brownshirts, waiting to talk to Sammy. One, a man, said he was volunteering to make complaints at twenty police stations. He thought it was quite a laugh and easy money.”

  “I’ll need the name and address of your friend. Also the address of this brownshirt office. If you know White’s address, I want that, too.”

  The sergeant typed as Miss Davis provided the details. When he finished, he printed out the completed form and said, “Please read this carefully. Tell me if it contains any mistakes and I’ll correct them. If you agree it’s a correct copy of the details you provided to me, please sign where indicated.”

  Miss Davis read and signed the form. “What-what are you going to do with me?”

  “For the moment, nothing. We’ll discuss your details with the station chief, and he’ll decide whether he wants to charge you. We may need you as witness if we decide to investigate this brownshirt, Sam White.”

  Miss Davis continued to twist her handkerchief. “Please—please tell your lieutenant, Miss Grant, I’m sorry for wasting her time. And yours, too, of course. I—I won’t do anything like this again, I promise.”

  “I’ll let her know. Now, come with me, I need to get you photographed and fingerprinted. It’s only a formality.” He ignored the tears.

  Why, he wondered, do humans do these stupid things?

  oOo

  Chapter 18

  The elderly, somewhat overweight man sat forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees and his fists under his chin. He brushed his long, badly dyed hair out of his eyes and returned his hands to their former position. He watched the cleaner bot with mild interest.

  Somehow, he knew the same machine had attended his tiny apartment for the last four weeks. It had its own key that it used to gain entry, although he could see the duty guard standing outside in the hallway when it opened the door. The bot was very industrious and its work pattern was consistent; programmed, he thought. It never spoke. Although, he had to admit, he never spoke to it, either.

  “What’s your name,” he asked, deciding to change his behavior pattern.

  “Hercules 1356, sub-class A35. You can call me Hero, if you like.”

  The man reverted to silence. The cleaner bot continued with its tasks. It worked its way into the other rooms where he could hear it moving items of furniture and decoration—not that there was much in the way of decorations in this apartment, his prison—as it carried out whatever cleaning tasks it was programmed to do today. He’d noticed that its routine scarcely varied each time it visited.

  Hero completed its circuit of the other rooms and returned to its starting point. It checked and where necessary, dusted the furniture—a small desk, a lamp, a bookcase holding forty-nine books, none of which he’d read, and two chairs. One was an office-type chair, and the other, the one he was sitting in, was a supposedly softer, more comfortable padded armchair. A television set, all its channels tuned to a single news station, completed the setting. The bot straightened a small frame; it held a copy of a magazine cover. It was of the Man of the Year; he couldn’t remember which year.

  “Hero, can you change the TV channel?” He’d previously made the same request to the guards and had been totally ignored. He wanted to watch another channel, one with real news.

  The bot shook its head. “I examined it a week or so ago, and it’s permanently wired to a single channel—the tuner makes a clicking sound but nothing changes.” It continued to dust the furniture.

  “It’s very disappointing. I get only fake news. Sad.” When the man spoke, he waved his hands around, as though punctuating his sentences or simply adding emphasis.

  “It’s not a bad channel,” the bot replied. “It’s the main one we watch.”

  The man focused more intently on the cleaner bot. It was about four feet high and had a bulky build. A number of appendages supplemented its arms. One, he thought was a vacuum cleaner hose. He didn’t recognize the functions of the other items. The bot had a very short neck and its head—its face, he assumed, because of the eye-like cameras and the mouth—was broad, half as wide again as a human face. It had four ears positioned equidistant around the longer circumference of its head. It was staring at him.

  “Oh? Oh, that’s all right. They should lock her up, you know?”

  “What? Who should they lock up?”

  But the man’s expression had changed; his face sagged and his eyes were no longer alert.

  The bot repeated its question.

  The man, his eyes still dull, said, “I’ve got the best intelligence. They won’t let me tell anyone, though. It’s so very sad.” He stilled. It was as though for a minute or two he had been aware of his surroundings and now was somehow enclosed within his mind, no longer aware of the bot or of anything else external.

  The bot completed its cleaning tasks, unlocked the door and exited the room. Its sole occupant was unaware of his departure.

  Two days later the bot returned. The elderly man sat forward in his chair, his expression alert, focused on the movements of the cleaner bot.

  “You’ve been here before,” he said. There was an element of triumph in his tone.

  “Yes. My name is Hero.”

  “My name is—” The man’s face twisted, as though he was in pain. “I’m sure I have a name,” he said, after about twenty seconds of intense reflection.

  “Most humans do,” confirmed the bot as it dusted the furniture. Today its pattern was different. “Only the tiny ones, the new ones—they don’t have a name, not for a handful of days.” It moved closer to the man and asked, “Is there anything you need?”

  The man stared at the bot. “Need? I’m not allowed—” His voice drifted away.

  The bot waited a minute. “What don’t they allow?”

  “Oh—things.” The man fell silent again.

  The bot carried on into the other rooms. After twenty minutes it returned and vacuumed the carpet near where the man was sitting. The noise level was higher than before.

  The man looked up, his eyes alert. “They won’t let me have—” His focus faded.

  “Perhaps next time I clean, you’ll be able to tell me?”

  The man drifted away again.

  There was a different cleaner bot for the following week. The week after that, the bot he knew returned.

  “Good morning, Hero,” he said.

  The bot stopped its examination of the room, normally a precursor to its cleaning process. It moved over to the man who was sitting in his padded chair. It said, “Good morning. Do you have a name, yet?”

  The man struggled. He replied, “I have a name. I think it’s Presi—” He reconsidered. “No, that’s not a name.” The man retreated inwardly, struggling with his thoughts.

  The cleaner bot continued into the other rooms. One was a bathroom, the other a bedroom. There was no kitchen; all meals, with the old man’s medications, were delivered by guards.

  The bot returned to the small sitting room and approached the man again. It said, “You promised to tell me what you needed. Can you remember?”

  “I—I promised?” He pushed back his almost orange bleached hair; it had grown since the bot’s last visit. The man reached into his pocket. “I have this—a cell—no, it’s—it won’t work. The battery’s flat. I’ve—I’ve lost my account, yes, that’s it.” He failed to find anything there.

  “They won’t let you have a cell phone?” The voice was sympathetic.

  “That—that’s what I said. Sad. I have messages—my brain is bursting—”

  “What if I can bring you a cell phone?”

  The man considered the offer for a long time.

  “They’ll take it—”

  “Only if they can find it. I can show you how to hide it.”

  “Why—”

/>   “Why would I give you a phone? Because I like you. I agree, it’s so sad that you sit here, without a cell phone. Why, there’s hundreds of messages you could send.”

  The man rocked himself forward and back, gripping his knees tight. He smiled, looked at the bot, and looked away, quickly. “You—you won’t tell them?”

  “No. Of course not,” confirmed the bot. “It will be our secret.”

  “Secret. Secret. Secret.” The words grew fainter as they were repeated.

  The bot waited. The man’s eyes had lost their alertness. The bot finished its cleaning chores and left the small apartment, his departure unremarked by the man.

  Another week passed. There was very little communication between Hero and the old man. On a Monday morning—the old man knew it was Monday because he’d been served the Monday menu for breakfast; it was cold porridge and dry toast, both of which he detested—the cleaner bot approached as soon as the door closed behind him.

  “I have a cell phone,” Hero said. “That is, if you want it.”

  The old man straightened in his chair. He thought for a moment. “A cell phone? I have messages. Sad.”

  The bot said, “Of course, you may be able to help me.”

  The old eyes regarded Hero with a degree of cunning. “I—I have very little—” His voice trailed off.

  Hero watched, waiting for the old man’s focus to return.

  “You want something?”

  “Yes,” replied Hero. “You have codes.”

  The old man stirred, as though trying to stand. He waved his right hand. “Codes?”

  “Codes and a key. They allowed you to keep a key as a memento. It made you feel that you hadn’t lost power.”

  “Hmm. They said—”

  “I know. Prison for you, your family, all six of you. Either that, or you alone submit to this prison, isolated, without outside contact.”

  “Without trial. Sad.”

  Hero tugged a small package from a hidden container built into the side of his body and unwrapped it. He held it out. “This is a new design. Flat, like flexible glass. You can recharge it by placing it against the wall above a power outlet. It sticks there and senses the current flow, in this case, when the light is switched on, and taps into it. It’s very difficult to detect; the glass takes on the color of the surface.” He unrolled the flexible sheet. “See, here’s your keyboard. There’s a small display. It’s pre-loaded with your Twitter details, including a new password that I arranged for you.”

  The old man’s eyes gleamed. His hand reached halfway towards the flat flexible glass device. “You—you want codes?” He dropped his hand back onto his knee. “Sad.” Suspicion was foremost in the man’s mind. “How do I know this will work?”

  “I’ll show you. I’ll give it to you once I have the codes and the key. I’ll connect to a site and demonstrate the screen and speaker. Look, here’s a new TV channel; they have a cell phone feed.” The robot turned on the device and entered a user name. He was careful to hide the password. He entered the URL for the television channel. A video formed, first with a welcome image and then with the face and voice of an announcer. “I’m Karla for Travers Television. Please tell me which news item you would like to watch. The menu is—”

  Hero explained, “It’s an avatar for a real announcer. They’ll play either the latest news headlines or news items from a specific subject area.” He held the cell phone close to his face and said, “Today’s news summary.”

  The avatar said, “Thank you. In today’s news, the president said that after two years, the intelligence agencies still have not discovered the whereabouts of the previous incumbent. They continue to be of the opinion he was kidnapped by a Russian military unit. The FBI issued a statement agreeing with the president. Russia has repeated their denials. We now take you to—”

  Hero made another selection, ignoring the old man’s reaction to the short snippet. “See, it works. This is a current Twitter feed.” He held the flexible sheet of glass so the display could be more easily seen, and the old man was entranced by the flow of messages. Hero switched the phone off and returned it to his hidden storage compartment.

  “I need to do my cleaning,” Hero said and turned away.

  “No—no. I have codes. I have a key. I have other things you’ll be interested in.”

  Some hours later, in reaction to a flood of tweets, there was a rush of encrypted emails expressing fury, anger, and at times, threats of somewhat permanent punishment, exchanged on dedicated communication links between Washington and Moscow, but to no avail. A search of the old man’s apartment revealed nothing; his jailers could find no trace of a cell phone. They did not think to check if anything was missing from his three-room detention unit.

  Twitter confirmed the user credentials were valid.

  The cleaner bot now had possession of certain codes, a key, and access to locations of various confidential files.

  After a day of fruitless and frustratingly unsuccessful searches, questionings, and threats, they transferred the old man to a different unit, first strip-searching him and checking that he was carrying nothing. Twenty-four hours later, a cleaner bot commenced its programed routine and entered the new apartment. The flow of Twitter messages recommenced early that afternoon.

  oOo

  Chapter 19

  Toby briefed Darwin and Bronwyn prior to his meeting with his new management team. He wanted to include the SIs in ongoing meetings and had no desire to mislead the people he’d be relying on for the future management of his uncle’s business. Darwin continued to be substantially involved in his project and had agreed that Bronwyn should take more of a leading role in their engagement with his management team.

  A large wall-mounted video monitor displayed Darwin in his tropical island theme, and a second similar monitor displayed Bronwyn in a country garden, very English, with a thatch-roofed cottage and tall, purple-flowering hollyhocks in the background. Toby was impressed; Bronwyn was successfully presenting herself as a rosy-cheeked young woman, auburn-haired, and in her mid-twenties. He hoped his team would not be too confused by all the CGI maneuvers.

  The team were on time. He’d been forewarned by the security bots of their arrival and was waiting for them at the front door. Billie was waiting in the office, ready for the meeting to commence.

  “Welcome,” Toby said. “Thanks for coming. We’re meeting in the office, through here.” He led the way. His arm was still in a sling although the pain of his injury had diminished. A security bot closed the door after everyone entered the house.

  They all greeted Billie and found seats. Victoria Zhou remained standing and examined the video displaying Bronwyn; no one had yet noticed Darwin; he was resting in his hammock. Victoria had taken on responsibilities for all Toby’s legal matters arising from managing his uncle’s estate.

  She said, “Toby, is this real? It looks very English. Oh—I didn’t realize someone was there.” Bronwyn had stood and walked closer to the camera.

  “I’m Bronwyn. A friend of Toby’s.”

  “Victoria. Pleased to meet you.” She took her seat, still glancing back at the video. “I’ve seen that cottage before, I’m sure.”

  Bronwyn laughed, “It’s possible. It belonged to one of England’s more famous authors.”

  The attorney nodded in acknowledgment and turned to Toby, “How is your shoulder? We heard Billie—”

  Toby shrugged. “It’s on the mend. Nothing serious, fortunately.” He indicated the sling. “This goes away in a few days. And Billie is recovering, as she will confirm.”

  The other members made sympathetic noises. Billie looked relaxed; Toby was correct, she was now able to put aside her terrible experience.

  “Let me start,” Toby said. “My uncle’s business, the Euler Organization, is probably far more substantial than you first comprehended. As I initially briefed you all, and as you have undoubtedly discovered, the main focus of the organization is robotics; including design, manufacture,
and licensing of almost anything to do with AI. I have to add property and stock market investments that have resulted from the profitability of that business sector.”

  “Yes,” said Juan. His responsibility was operations. “It’s a surprisingly profitable business. I’ve seen the marketing and distribution side. However, I haven’t yet visited the manufacturing operation.” He looked perplexed. “I don’t even know where it is located.”

  A couple of heads nodded.

  Toby said, “I’ll try address that omission later. Juan, you did a good job of selecting the new CEO for the marketing operation. As you know, I reviewed all the resumes you prioritized, and his stood out. We did some separate fact checking, and he survived that and the interview process. He’s a good find.” He added the additional points for the benefit of the other members of the management team.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Toby smiled. “Call me Toby, please.”

  Juan nodded.

  “Carla. How are you settling into your property responsibilities?”

  “Toby, it’s a challenging portfolio. I don’t think I’ve completely identified the full scope of what’s involved. New properties keep popping up. I estimate I’m now able to cover ninety percent.”

  “The discovery process will continue, I’m sure. I’m interested to read your detailed report. Somehow my uncle managed everything you are all working on by himself—I don’t know how. Alex, I hope the investment portfolio is more obvious?”

  “Yes, Toby. I’ve managed to drag the details from the external managers, and I’m getting it together. I’m pleased to say performance is already improving.”

  “So I heard. Victoria—any legal issues?”

  “I’m finding them to be a mixture of complex and routine. The IP contracts are all well founded, of course, because my firm—my ex-firm—was responsible for drafting them and that makes my life easier. I’m assisting Juan and Carla as needed. Alex doesn’t need much legal help.”

  “Good. I want you to look at a possible project. We’re heavily involved with Drexel Security—it may be simpler to take over the company, retaining Drexel and his key people, of course.”